Seasons

First Appearance

Last Appearance

Josephine Ada Lightbourne was a recurring character in the sixth season. She was portrayed by actresses Sara Thompson, Skylar Radzion, Gwynyth Walsh and Eliza Taylor and debuted in "Red Sun Rising". She was the main antagonist for the majority of Season Six.

Contents

Early Life

In December 2043, she and her friend Olivia were in a diner in Boston, Massachusetts, when her boyfriend Dave came in and shot himself in the head. This left Josephine horrified. She originally wasn't going to go with her parents on the Mission, but this event caused her to go.

Josephine and her parents went aboard Eligius III to travel to the moon Alpha. They arrived there in 2045 and were original members of Mission Team Alpha. Josephine was one of the biologists for the team. She was in charge of classifying lifeforms on their new world. It was Josephine who suggested naming the place "Sanctum" - the Latin-root for sanctuary.

On day 21 of the mission, the team endured an eclipse of the two suns. Unknown to them, the eclipse triggers the release of a psychosis-inducing toxin from the plants. Josephine was killed by her father, who was suffering from the psychosis.

The pain of losing Josephine pushed her father and her boyfriend, Gabriel Santiago, to start exploring ways to bring her back. In 2070, after 25 years of failed experiments, Gabriel was able to figure out how to use the Mind Drives to bring their loved ones back by uploading their entire consciousness into a host with black blood. Josephine was the first person to be brought back using this technology.

Her family became three of the Primes and used various hosts for the next two centuries to be reborn after each death. Josephine was on her seventh host, making her Josephine VIII.[1]

Throughout the Series

In Red Sun Rising, 236 years ago, Josephine and her family were among the original families (the Primes) to settle on Sanctum as part of Mission Team Alpha. As a taxomy biologist, Josie's primary task was studying and classifying plants and animals on the moon. She found the place to be peaceful and safe and therefore suggested naming it "Sanctum" - the Latin root for "sanctuary." While making out with her boyfriend during their first encounter with the red sun eclipse, Josephine was the first to notice that something wasn't right when all insects stopped moving. She ran back towards their house just as a swarm of bugs started to attack. Unfortunately, she found her father suffering from the eclipse-induced psychosis which caused him to turn against his own family. Mr. Lightbourne started killing people including his own daughter, Josephine.

Over the years, Josephine and other Primes have been brought back several times using the Mind Drive technology that transfers the memories and personalities of the Primes into the host bodies of people with Royal Blood.

In The Face Behind the Glass, Josephine's parents, now occupying Russell and Simone Lightbourne bodies as hosts are desperate to bring her back. They had been waiting for Rose to become of age so that they can use her as Josie's host; but Rose is kidnapped and killed by the Children of Gabriel. After discovering that Clarke has royal blood, the Lightbournes' take advantage of her when she's paralyzed to bring Josephine back. They insert Josie's A.I. into Clarke, replacing her memories and personality with Josephine's. Josephine wakes up in Clarke's body, scared at first, thinking she was falling. She starts playing with her hair just like the original Josie used to.

In The Gospel of Josephine, Josie reveals to her parents that it was Kaylee who killed her last host. This is why Kaylee's family stole the Gagarin to escape Sanctum before they're caught. Russell and Simone summon Kaylee to question her about it. Josie kills Kaylee to get even with her. After that, Josie's parents ask her to keep a low profile and pretend to be Clarke in order to spy on Wonkru and figure out how many others have royal blood. She is assigned Jade as her personal guard as she mingles with Clarke's friends. Clarke's friend start to become suspicious when Josephine, pretending to be Clarke, allows Madi to go to school despite Clarke and Gaia having agreed that it was too risky. She goes to see Clarke's mother, Abby where she almost blows her cover by taking notes with the right-hand since Clarke is left-handed.

When Josie notices Clarke's friends headed to the room where the Naming Ceremony ritual takes place, she follows them to keep them in check. She tries to urge them to leave but Jordan, Bellamy and Gaia remain persistent. She watches them uncover the room filled with skeletons for all the past Primes. They find a secret door to a lab in which they find a computer with video logs. One of them is an experiment video log in which Josie's ex-boyfriend Gabriel Santiago finally figured out how to bring Josie back using her Mind Drive.

After watching how Gabriel forced unwilling Nightbloods to become hosts for the Primes, Josephine doesn't seem concerned which worries Clarke's friends. She learns that Madi is a nightblood but sticks around to figure out how many more they have. When Murphy mentions that Clarke was turned into a nightblood in a lab, Josephine figures out they can use that to make more hosts for the Primes. When she gets up to tell her parents, Bellamy becomes suspicious and confronts her. Bellamy's suspicions are confirmed when she struggles to understand Trigedasleng. Bellamy pins her against the wall and asks her who she is. Josie knocks him out with a paralytic dart and reveals that she is Josephine Lightbourne. Afterwards, Josie comes up with a plan to use Murphy for information. She gets Murphy drunk before helping him figure out she's Josephine. To get Murphy on her side, she asks him if he wants immortality.

In Nevermind, Clarke, who survived due to her experiences with A.L.I.E., works to wrest control of her body back from Josephine while she is sleeping by traveling through Josephine's memories with a manifestation of Monty Green. Clarke finds the one traumatic memory Josephine couldn't face, where her boyfriend committed suicide when Josephine wouldn't stay with him, Clarke is confronted by Josephine who shoves Clarke back into her mind palace and wakes up with a nosebleed. Josephine attends a meeting with her father, Bellamy and Nathan Miller, but fails to realize that Clarke has managed to retake control of one finger and make Josephine tap out a Morse code message on her arm that Clarke is still alive. Bellamy sees the message and quickly grasps the significance while Josephine warns Russell that Clarke is still alive. However, she now knows how to get rid of Clarke for good.

In The Old Man and the Anomaly, Russell determines that they have 36 hours before Clarke's body burns out from the strain. Josephine decides to stay awake until they can get rid of Clarke for good, but Russell instead sees it as an opportunity to restore the wrong they did by resurrecting Josephine through Clarke. Russell suggests removing Josephine's Mind Drive and restoring Clarke to her own body while they find a new willing host for Josephine as Abby has replicated the Nightblood serum. Josephine, however, is unwilling to give up her host and attempts to talk Russell out of it without success.

Unwilling to give up Clarke's body, Josephine enlists Murphy, Emori and Ryker to help her in secret and blackmails Ryker with the knowledge that he helped Gabriel escape to force his compliance. Though Emori originally agrees to help, she eventually betrays Josephine and lures her and Murphy into a field where they are joined by Bellamy and Echo who plan to use an EMP to disable Josephine and have Eric Jackson remove the Mind Drive. Josephine takes Murphy hostage to force them to back down, but Murphy directs them instead to take Josephine to the Children of Gabriel to get rid of her. With Sanctum guards approaching, Josephine slices open Murphy's leg and tries to use the distraction to escape but is caught be Bellamy and restrained. As the others remain behind, Bellamy uses the EMP to temporarily disable the radiation fence and drags a resisting Josephine through to take her to the Children of Gabriel.

At the same time, on his approach to the temporal anomaly, Gabriel has various hallucinations of Josephine in her original body. Gabriel implies that Josephine is both his darkest fear and deepest desire.

In What You Take With You, Bellamy seeks out the Children of Gabriel to remove Josephine from Clarke. However, Josephine's condition continues to deteriorate, causing a seizure. The two are captured shortly thereafter by the Children of Gabriel who leave to send a message to Gabriel. Bellamy notes Josephine's reaction to that name and Josephine admits to being in love with Gabriel for 236 years despite the fact that Gabriel has been trying to kill her for the last 70 of those years. Due to wall in their mind being almost gone, Clarke is able to hear their conversation and uses Morse code to tap out "boohoo" to Josephine which she now understands. However, Josephine refuses to relinquish control so that Bellamy can talk with Clarke. With their minds beginning the merge, Josephine gains some of Clarke's knowledge in regards to Bellamy and their relationship. Bellamy explains that he intends to trade Josephine's Mind Drive to Russell for peace with the Sanctum citizens, something Josephine sees as impossible.

With Sanctum guards approaching, the Children return and realize that Josephine is a Nightblood and a Prime. After Bellamy identifies her, the Children prepare to execute Josephine. At the last moment, Josephine relinquishes control to Clarke who is able to break free. Clarke explains to Bellamy that Josephine recognized that her choices were give Clarke control or get her head chopped off. After Clarke knocks Jade unconscious, a manifestation of Josephine in her original body appears to her. Josephine explains that due to how far their minds are merging, Clarke can now see her in the waking world. Josephine urges Clarke to relinquish control so Josephine can return to Sanctum, but she refuses. Instead, Clarke sends a message to Gabriel who receives it alongside Octavia Blake. Tapping into Josephine's knowledge of motorcycles, Clarke drives off to find Gabriel taunting Josephine "sucks doesn't it?" in Mandarin.

In Matryoshka, Josephine continues communicating with Clarke as she tries to find Gabriel before collapsing. As Sanctum guards approach, Clarke convinces Josephine to help her hide in an old blind once used by Gabriel and Josephine to observe Sanctum's wildlife. However, Clarke experiences another seizure, rendering her unconscious as Josephine desperately tries to sooth her.

After the seizure ends, Clarke awakens in her Mindspace to find that it has merged with Josephine's completely. With their condition worsening, Clarke threatens to shoot Josephine who warns Clarke that if she dies this time with their minds combined, Josephine could be gone for good. Instead, Clarke comes up with the idea of floating some of Josephine's memories to help separate their minds and buy them some time. With the Mind Drive approaching critical systems failure, Josephine agrees and loses the memories that Clarke floats, leaving her unable to remember what she lost just that she did. The two explore Josephine's memories to find ones to float and come across one of Josephine and Gabriel dancing after their first resurrection. Seeing how emotional it makes Josephine, Clarke allows her to keep the memory and Josephine admits that she wasn't always the evil person she became, causing Clarke to sympathize with her. As Josephine opens another book, she relives the memory of her first death, resulting in Russell's axe manifesting in the Mindspace. Seeing how badly the Mindspace has deteriorated, Clarke floats everything, causing Josephine to disappear.

In the real world, Clarke's body is surrounded by vines and she is nearly choked to death before being rescued by Gabriel and Octavia. Josephine reveals that she has regained control over Clarke's body and is reunited with Gabriel for the first time in 70 years. They are soon after captured by Sanctum guards led by Jade, causing Josephine to order Gabriel's capture and the death of Octavia. However, Bellamy reveals himself amongst the guards, kills the others and sends Jade back to Sanctum with a threat. With Clarke's body experiencing another seizure, Gabriel takes them back to the Verge where he prepares to temporarily stop Clarke's heart so that Josephine's mind will download into her Mind Drive which can then be removed. Josephine tries to convince Gabriel not to go through with it so they can finally be together while Bellamy still wants to return Josephine to Sanctum. However, Josephine knows that Gabriel doesn't want her to resurrect again. Gabriel tearfully stops Clarke's heart and removes the Mind Drive, but can't revive Clarke.

In her mind, Clarke is confronted by Josephine who reveals that she managed to latch on to the neural mesh in Clarke's mind to prevent the download. Josephine slits Clarke's throat with Russell's axe and declares that Sanctum is hers and explains that she knew that if Clarke came back, she would kill everyone inside Sanctum. Unwilling to let Clarke go, Bellamy desperately tries to revive her, urging Clarke to fight. Hearing Bellamy's cries, Clarke grabs the axe and swings it through Josephine, destroying her. In the real world, Clarke regains consciousness while the brain wave pattern representing Josephine flatlines on Gabriel's EEG.

In Ashes to Ashes, Clarke, Bellamy, Octavia and Gabriel try to come up with a plan to defeat the remaining Primes. As they prepare a Red Sun toxin bomb, Clarke realizes that Josephine was right about what they would do to Sanctum, commenting that it was just like Mount Weather all over again and is inspired to come up with a new less lethal plan. Clarke comes up with the idea to pose as Josephine to sneak into Sanctum and take down the shield while the others simulate a Red Sun eclipse to cause an evacuation. When Jade and Murphy arrive, Clarke is able to perfectly imitate Josephine and fool them and Russell to get into Sanctum. Clarke's story for her lack of a Mind Drive is just what Josephine actually did: she used Clarke's neural mesh to hang on inside of her head when the Mind Drive was removed. Clarke, posing as Josephine, claims that she won the fight and killed Clarke in the Mindspace. Clarke is forced to lie to Madi however, making her even more enraged at the thought that her mother truly is dead.

In Adjustment Protocol, Clarke continues her masquerade as Josephine which forces her to lie to her family and friends about her continued survival. Clarke's act as Josephine proves to be so good that even Abby falls for it and bursts into tears at the idea that her child is truly dead. However, when they are alone, Clarke reveals the truth to Abby, Raven and Eric Jackson. Clarke successfully continues her masquerade as Josephine, even fooling Simone when she is resurrected in the host of Abigail Griffin. Clarke is able to pass off her tears as Josephine being enraged at the betrayal of Gabriel, who has been captured. Before departing with the other Primes for Eligius IV, Clarke inadvertently reveals the truth to Murphy and Emori when she slips up and calls Murphy by his last name instead of John as Josephine would do. Relieved by Clarke's survival, Murphy informs Clarke that Josephine called him John.

In The Blood of Sanctum, Clarke continues her masquerade as Josephine until Russell and Simone plot to mind wipe all of the sleeping Wonkru members. When Clarke refuses and pulls a gun on them, Josephine's parents realize the truth and Russell bursts into tears. Walking away with the mind wipe solution, Clarke tells them that "believe it or not, I am sorry for your loss."

Personality

Josephine is a biologist. She is multilingual, speaking at least three foreign languages: German, Portuguese, and Mandarin.[2] In her first appearance, she seemed pretty optimistic and generally happy to be where she was. She was also very smart. As seen while hosting Clarke's body she seems to really enjoy music and painting.

In reality however, she is cold, manipulative and supremacist. She believed in Nightblood and Prime supremacy, going as far as to sacrifice babies who don't have Nightblood. She is also very vengeful and is willing to kill people who meant a lot to her, such as Kaylee thus revealing that she cares only for herself. Despite the fact that she is just a human, she as well as the rest of the Primes, presents herself to the people of Sanctum as a savior and goddess.

As one of the Primes, Josephine has a dim view of those beneath her. She is willing to do whatever it takes to survive, unwilling to give Clarke Griffin up as a host even though she could potentially gain a willing host and give Clarke her life back. Josephine is willing to go so far as blackmail to get what she wants. However, she doesn't appear to be a good fighter as she relies on blackmail and threats when confronted by Clarke's friends and had to relinquish control to Clarke to escape decapitation even though she was unchained. Unlike Josephine, Clarke was able to easily break free and told Bellamy that Josephine chose to give her control so that she could save them. Josephine admitted to being impressed with Clarke's skill at fighting afterwards. When she tried to kill Clarke for the last time, Josephine chose to slit her throat and gloat rather than going for an immediate killing blow as Clarke did, giving Clarke the chance to kill her. Josephine, satisfied that she had won, also made the mistake of tossing her weapon next to Clarke who was then able to use it against Josephine.

As she goes through her old memories with Clarke, Josephine shows a softer side to herself, particularly in her interactions with her memories of Gabriel. In one such moment, Josephine admits that she wasn't always the person she has become, apparently remorseful for some of things she has done. Clarke recognizes and sympathizes with this and suggests that they can define who they are instead of letting the bad things define who they are.

However Josephine didn't believe her people and Clarke's people would peacefully coexist despite apparently taking somewhat of a liking to Clarke. Choosing to be the 'savior' of Sanctum lead to her final death.

Physical Appearance

In her original body she had semi-long blonde hair, brown eyes, and fair skin, with a slim figure.

Relationships

Gabriel Santiago

In "Red Sun Rising", Josephine is shown to be in a relationship with Gabriel Santiago, but their relationship ended when he disagreed with the Primes' own ways and, possibly due to Josephine's true nature.

In "What You Take With You," Josephine tells Bellamy Blake that she's been in love with Gabriel for 236 years even though he's been trying to kill her for the last 70 years of that time.

In "Matryoshka," Clarke and Josephine watch a memory of Josephine and Gabriel together after both of their first resurrections. In the memory, Josephine promises to love Gabriel forever while the current Josephine becomes emotional at seeing it, showing that she truly does still love Gabriel.

Mr. and Mrs. Lightbourne

Kaylee was Josephine's friend. Josie was mad that Kaylee abandoned the group at Ryker's Keep that she stabbed her recent host, but it's heavily implied it was payback for ending the last life of her host.

Josephine's relationship with Clarke is complicated. Their relationship begins with Josephine's parents sacrificing Clarke to be Josephine's host which puts the two women at odds with each other as they fight for control of their shared body. However, as circumstances force them to work together, it becomes clear to the two of them that they aren't so different from each other and they begin cooperating more with Josephine opening up to Clarke who shows sympathy for Josephine and expresses hope that they can both be saved by removing Josephine's Mind Drive rather than planning to destroy it and get rid of Josephine for good. Josephine subsequently calls Clarke her friend to Bellamy. However, Josephine tries to kill Clarke as she feels that Clarke will kill everyone in Sanctum if she doesn't and half-heartedly apologizes. In response, Clarke destroys Josephine for good instead of trying to spare her again. Clarke later tells Josephine's parents that she truly is sorry about having to kill Josephine.

Killed Victims

Notes and Trivia

In "Red Sun Rising", she is called Josephine Ada Lightbourne by her father. This makes her the second person in the series with their middle name stated in the series. (The first being Jordan Jasper Green.)

Josephine suggested the name "Sanctum" for Alpha, the latin root for "sanctuary".

A drink was after her called "Jo Juice". Blythe Ann is supposedly the recipe holder.

She doesn't know Trigedasleng, which made her vulnerable to others finding out her parents killed Clarke, whose body she is now inhabiting. (Bellamy finds out when she asks him to repeat his last phase in Trig, and drugs him.) She also didn't know Morse code or even recognize its use by Clarke to communicate with Bellamy, but she later gained the knowledge after her and Clarke's minds began to combine and they could access each others knowledge of various things for their own purposes.

She calls John Murphy "John" in front of several: Bellamy, Gaia, Jordan and Madi, they all look confused when she does this - though no-one says anything. When she later calls him John a second time, he figures out she is not Clarke. When Clarke calls him Murphy in "Adjustment Protocol," he realizes that it's Clarke and not Josephine for the same reason and informs Clarke that Josephine had only ever called him "John."

She thinks John Murphy is "kinda cute" and revealed her "true self" to him by revealing Clarke is dead and she now inhabits her body - before he can tell anyone, she offers him what he wants most: immortality. He accepts, showing she was right about him.

Her first unofficial host was a six month old girl and her second unofficial host was 15 year old girl, named Savannah.

Josephine speaks Portuguese with a Spanish accent in "Memento Mori". She is also multilingual as she speaks different foreign languages, including German, and Mandarin.[6] Clarke later steals Josephine's knowledge of Mandarin to taunt her in the language.

Ironically Josephine's first and last deaths occur in the exact same manner: axed to death by Russell Lightbourne and Clarke Griffin. Due to Josephine getting the axe from the memory of her first death, she was even killed with the same weapon both times.

In "Ashes to Ashes," it's confirmed that Josephine's Mind Drive is empty and that none of her consciousness survived in there.